an to paint her wrinkled face as if going to dance a minuet with
death. First the black rings about the languid eyes were whitened, then
the earthen cheeks were rouged, and finally the livid lips and nostrils
were pencilled with the rosy hues of health and youth.

Roma had turned on the electric light, but the glare oppressed the
patient, and she switched it off again. The night had now closed in, and
the only light in the room came from the little red oil-lamp which
burned before the shrine.

The drug began to operate, and its first effect was to loosen the old
lady's tongue. She began to talk of priests in a tone of contempt and
braggadocio.

"I hate priests," she said, "and I can't bear to have them about me. Why
so? Because they are always about the dead. Their black cassocks make me
think of funerals. The sight of a graveyard makes me faint. Besides,
priests and confessions go together, and why should a woman confess if
she can avoid it? When people confess they have to give up the thing
they confess to, or they can't get absolution. Fedi's a fool. Give it up
indeed! I might as well talk of giving up the bed that's under me."

Roma sat on a stool by the bedside, listening intently, yet feeling she
had no right to listen. The drug was rapidly intoxicating the Countess,
who went on to talk as if some one else had been in the room.

"A priest would be sure to ask questions about that girl. I would have
to tell him why the Baron put me here to look after her, and then he
would prate about the Sacraments and want me to give up everything."

The Countess laughed a hard, evil laugh, and Roma felt an icy shudder
pass over her.

"'I'm tied,' said the Baron. 'But you must see that she waits for me.
Everything depends upon you, and if all comes out well....'"

The old woman's tongue was thickening, and her eyes in the dull red
light were glazed and stupid.

Roma sat motionless and silent, watching with her own dilated eyes the
grinning sinner, as she poured out the story of the plot for her capture
and corruption. At that moment she hated her aunt, the unclean,
malignant, unpitying thing who had poisoned her heart against her father
and tried to break down every spiritual impulse of her soul.

The diabolical horse-laughter came again, and then the devil who had
loosened the tongue of the dying woman in the intoxication of the drug
made her reveal the worst secret of her tortured conscience.

"Why did I let him tor